Note his diagnosis of the problem of free will as being a result of philosophical confusion. Yes, of course, we will things and act according to our will, so in that sense, it’s free, but our will is itself caused.
I have always been too shy to ask, but would anyone be willing to tell me how wrong I am about my musings regarding free will here? I haven’t read the LW sequence on free will yet, as it states “aspiring reductionists should try to solve it on their own.” I tried, any feedback?
I don’t think it’s very good. (On the other hand, I have seen a great deal worse on free will.) There seem to be some outright errors or at least imprecisions, eg.:
No system can understand itself for that the very understanding would evade itself forever. A bin trying to contain itself.
To keep on topic, are you familiar with quining and all the ways of self-referencing?
I am vaguely aware of it. As far as I know a Quine can be seen as an artifact of a given language rather than a complete and consistent self-reference. Every Quine is missing some of its own definition, e.g. “when preceded by” or “print” need external interpreters to work as intended. No closed system can contain a perfect model of itself and is consequently unable to predict its actions, therefore no libertarian free will can exist.
There seem to be some outright errors or at least imprecisions...
What is outright wrong or imprecise about it?
The main point I tried to make is that a definition of free will that does satisfy our understanding of being free agents is possible if you disregard free from and concentrate on free to.
A partial answer here:
I have always been too shy to ask, but would anyone be willing to tell me how wrong I am about my musings regarding free will here? I haven’t read the LW sequence on free will yet, as it states “aspiring reductionists should try to solve it on their own.” I tried, any feedback?
I don’t think it’s very good. (On the other hand, I have seen a great deal worse on free will.) There seem to be some outright errors or at least imprecisions, eg.:
To keep on topic, are you familiar with quining and all the ways of self-referencing?
I am vaguely aware of it. As far as I know a Quine can be seen as an artifact of a given language rather than a complete and consistent self-reference. Every Quine is missing some of its own definition, e.g. “when preceded by” or “print” need external interpreters to work as intended. No closed system can contain a perfect model of itself and is consequently unable to predict its actions, therefore no libertarian free will can exist.
What is outright wrong or imprecise about it?
The main point I tried to make is that a definition of free will that does satisfy our understanding of being free agents is possible if you disregard free from and concentrate on free to.
That’s good for standard philosophy, but it doesn’t rise to the level of LW-style cognitive philosophy.